“ ‘We’?” I asked. “You know, I don’t remember telling you about any of this. Were you eavesdropping?”
Joan stared at me. “Well, of course I was eavesdropping. I sit at your table, don’t I? Besides, what does it matter? I’m going to help you. Let’s look at”—she paused to draw a box in the air—“the bigger picture.”
“She has a point,” Henry said.
I blew my hair out of my face. “Fine. What’s this about a petition?”
“Well, I was thinking we make a petition and get lots of signatures. Then we can show Mr. Rue and your dad and Mayor Pitter and everyone how many people really care about the Hall.” Joan slid some papers out of her notebook and shoved them at me. “See? Here are some sample ones.”
“Petition for Putting Seat Belts on All School Buses?” I read. “Really?”
“It hasn’t worked yet, but I won’t give up.” Joan grabbed the papers back. “So, we get all these signatures. Then we make fliers. You can do that, Olivia.” She smiled shyly. “Since you’re such a good artist.”
Henry kicked me under the table. “See? What’d I tell you?”
“Ow.” I kicked him back. “Jerk.”
“We’ll put them up all over town, and I mean everywhere,” Joan was saying. “All the telephone poles, every building we can find. The libraries. The only problem is, it has to be something more than just saving the Hall. People have to feel like they’re getting something out of it too.”
“Something to make them buy tickets.” Henry was getting excited, flipping through Joan’s sample petitions like they were sheets of gold. “That’s the important thing. We need the money, the numbers.”
As they kept talking, I started doodling fliers on my sketchpad to help me think. I halfway listened to them and my mind wandered, and so did my pencil. After a few minutes, I looked down and saw that I had doodled ghosts. Four of them. Even Frederick.
Bingo.
I had to stand up and walk around and then come sit back down. The inspiration that had just hit me was too big for me to sit still.
Henry and Joan watched me. “What is it, Olivia?”
“I know what our message could be,” I said slowly. “Besides saving the Hall, I mean. Something cool, something to get people’s attention and fill seats. We could tell them about the ghosts.”
HENRY AND JOAN were quiet for a second. Then Joan’s face lit up.
“That,” she whispered, “is brilliant.”
I wasn’t used to people calling me brilliant. “Is it?”
“Yes. Yes. It’s the perfect angle. Everyone loves ghost stories and being scared . . .”
“. . . and the Hall is kind of creepy, too,” I said, “with everything so old and broken-down. It’s the perfect setting. We could spread rumors around the city. Maybe your dad could help, Joan. People will listen to him. And it wouldn’t even be lying because it’s the truth, there really are ghosts. People might think it was just a rumor, but they’d come anyway, to see for themselves.”
Henry leaned forward. “We could coach the ghosts to show themselves every once in a while, to show people that something really is going on . . .”
Joan picked it up from there. “And people would tell their friends about what happened to them, and more and more people would come . . .”
“And pretty soon we’d have an audience again,” I finished.
Joan leapt up out of her seat and danced.
“Olivia,” Henry said, “you’re a certified genius.” Then he spun me around in this big hug, but I couldn’t even enjoy it. Up in the air, I’d just had a horrible thought.
“Guys . . . wait.” Henry put me down, looking confused. I backed up, shaking my head. “Actually, I don’t know if we can do this. Isn’t it kind of like . . . using the ghosts? Making them work for us? What if they don’t want to?”
Henry’s shoulders dropped. “Oh.”
“Of course they’ll want to, Olivia,” Joan said patiently. “You’ve helped them all this time. The least they can do now is help you. It’s like you were meant to help each other.” Her eyes shone, and she leaned forward. “That’s what they call—”
“—destiny?” I smiled. Joan was right. We were meant to help each other. My skin tingled. “They call it destiny.”
FEBRUARY
THE FLIER I designed looked something like this:
ATTENTION CITIZENS:
HELP SAVE THE GHOSTS OF EMERSON HALL
The City Philharmonic needs your help!
The City Philharmonic is one of our city’s oldest, most honorable institutions.
AND IT’S IN TROUBLE.
We need 5,000 signatures by March 1.
We need increased concert attendance by 1000%.
Otherwise . . .
EMERSON HALL WILL BE DEMOLISHED.
The Hall desperately needs repairs, but repairs cost money. We know times are hard these days, with The Economy, but what’s more worth saving than the culture of our city?
AND THE GHOSTS OF OUR CITY’S PAST, WHICH ARE HAUNTING IT?
Please sign below if you want to save the Hall and its ghosts.
And please come attend City Philharmonic concerts in February,
and meet the ghosts of
Emerson Hall . . .
The flier had a border of music notes and wispy shapes that looked like typical Halloween ghosts. I had drawn the letters in a swirling, official-looking font.
Henry whistled when I showed him the finished copy. “Olivia, it’s beautiful.”
“You think so?” The way Henry said “beautiful” was so nice, I couldn’t stop smiling.
“Yes, absolutely. Don’t you think, Joan?”
Joan kissed it. “It’s completely marvelous, Olivia. It looks so impressive, and everything about the ghosts is so intriguing. People won’t be able to resist.”
But it turns out, they could.
We started early the next Saturday morning, and when I say early, I mean seven in the morning, loaded up with backpacks full of pamphlets and clipboards, photographs of the Hall and musicians, and old recordings I’d found stashed backstage—recordings we hadn’t been able to sell.
The ghosts trailing behind us, we set out down Arlington Avenue in raincoats and boots because it was, of course, raining. It just figured. I scowled at my feet as I squished through the gutters, kicking around gobs of wet leaves. The worst part was that I’d had to borrow a raincoat from Joan. It was so nice, so stylish and sophisticated—yes, a sophisticated raincoat—that I felt like I shouldn’t be allowed to wear it.
“Is there some kind of limit to how far you can go from your haunt?” Henry asked.
The ghosts shrugged. Raindrops sizzled through them.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. If they got a certain distance away from the Hall, would the ghosts pop out of existence or something? Would they fade away or be in some kind of pain? Could ghosts even feel pain?
“Well,” said Joan, “maybe they should stay at the Hall—”
“No,” Tillie wailed. “We won’t have anything to do! We’re so bored.”
Jax cuddled close to me. “Don’t worry, Olivia. We can go pretty far. We’ll let you know when it starts to hurt.”
I gaped at him. “Hurt?”
“Well, yeah. Our anchors only let us go so far.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Oh, come on, Olivia,” Tillie huffed. “You’ve risked a lot for us. Let us risk something for you.”
“Fine.” I yanked my raincoat shut. “But you’ll let me know the second you start to hurt. Understand?”
The ghosts saluted me in unison. I couldn’t help but smile.
We headed uptown to the park and, for the next few hours, did what Joan called “pounding the pavement,” which is when you walk around and try to shove your business on everyone. It was about as fun as it sounds.
“Excuse me, good sir!” Joan ran up to a man decked out for bike riding, wearing a slick
bodysuit and goggles. Henry jogged after her, holding our umbrella over her clipboard. “Might I have a moment, sir?”
The man looked around in surprise. “Uh, what now?”
“Hello and good morning.” Joan shoved herself forward for a ferocious handshake. “My name is Joan Dawson, and these are my associates, Olivia Stellatella and Henry Page. We attend Killough Intermediate School, and we’re here to talk about Emerson Hall.”
“Actually, I’ve got to—”
“All we need is your signature, sir.”
“Right here on this petition,” I added, trying to smile as widely as Joan. It felt more like a scowl.
“This is saying that you don’t want the city to tear down Emerson Hall,” added Henry.
The man glanced at the petition while adjusting his goggles. “Isn’t that the crummy old music hall down on Wichita and Arlington?”
Once upon a time, I would have agreed with that man. Instead, I found myself getting ready to punch the guy. Henry had to hold me back.
Tillie growled under her breath. “I know I’m not supposed to attack fleshies, but can I attack this one?”
“No, Tillie,” Henry hissed.
“With due respect, good citizen,” Joan said, her nose up in the air, “that is not a polite thing to say about your city’s cultural—”
“Look, I’m sorry, kids, but I’ve got a schedule to keep, huh?”
And with that, the bike man zoomed off into the rain.
“You know, I don’t think he even read the petition,” Henry said.
“Well, of course he didn’t, he thinks the Hall’s crummy.” I kicked another leaf gob, and it stuck to my shoe like a molasses creature. I made a note to sketch that later: Glorbit the molasses man. “Lots of people are gonna think that, I bet. Maybe we’re just wasting our time. And it’s raining.”
“Oh, Olivia, don’t be such a gloomy Gus,” admonished Joan. “Come on, where’s your intrepid spirit? Onward, friends!”
But by ten thirty that morning, even Joan had lost her intrepid spirit. We were wet, cold, weighed down with soaked clothes, and had asked (Henry kept a tally) sixty-seven people for their signatures.
Only six of them had actually signed.
“That last woman was simply wretched,” Joan fumed, as we stomped into a coffee shop on Reginald Square to warm up. “No one believes in free speech more than I do, but there’s no need to curse at people.”
“My toes are frozen,” Henry groaned.
“Here, have mine,” Tillie said gleefully, plucking off her toes one by one and dropping them down Henry’s shirt, which made him shudder and dance around.
“Thanks for making me look like an idiot,” he said.
Tillie turned slow, grinning circles in the air. “You’re welcome.”
As they argued, I watched a white-haired man, sitting by the window with tea and a newspaper, look up at us, look back at his newspaper, and then look up again. His face paled. He squinted and shifted his glasses.
He was looking right at Mr. Worthington.
“Guys,” I whispered, elbowing Joan. “Look.”
“Mr. Worthington?” Henry said under his breath. “What are you doing?”
Mr. Worthington shrugged and smiled. “Grrflt.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said. “He’s gonna start a panic or something!”
The man stumbled out of his seat, pointing at us. He started to talk, but the words got stuck in his throat. His chair crashed to the ground. A woman nearby snapped, “Hey, knock it off, will you?”
“It’s a—It’s a—!” he croaked.
Joan put on her most dazzling smile and marched up to him with her clipboard in hand. “Good morning, sir. Would you like to sign our petition to save Emerson Hall?” Then she leaned close and whispered, “It’s haunted, you know.”
The man went even paler and hurried for the door, barreling into a server. Plates full of food came tumbling down.
I rummaged around in my backpack and shoved a piece of paper at the man right before he squeezed out the door. “Here’s a concert schedule!”
“That . . . was amazing,” said Joan. “Just the kind of publicity we need. Except, like, hundreds of more times.”
The coffee shop was a mess. People were staring. The server, mopping up the mess, was glaring.
“People are looking at us,” Henry said through his teeth.
“Exactly!”
“What’d you do to that poor guy?” said the woman from before, laughing. “He looked like he saw a ghost.”
I grabbed the petition from Joan. “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” I said. “But if you come see a concert at Emerson Hall, you might find out.”
“And you could sign this petition, too,” Henry added, hurrying over. A line was forming behind the woman, people shoving each other to get a closer look at us.
“Mr. Worthington,” I whispered, “you’re a genius.”
He grinned lopsidedly at me.
As the woman scribbled her name on the petition and read over the flier, Joan grinned at me and gave me a thumbs-up.
Our seventh signature. And maybe one of the thousands of people we needed to buy tickets.
It was a start.
We were wet, cold, weighed down with soaked clothes, and had asked (Henry kept a tally) sixty-seven people for their signatures.
HENRY GRIMACED AS he pulled off his shoe. “Maybe if we showed people our feet, we could get more signatures. They’d sign so we would go away and they wouldn’t have to look at our feet anymore.”
Our feet were looking pretty bad after two hard days of pounding the pavement. I myself had three blisters, one of which looked ready to pop. And even Joan, who was wearing some kind of fancy cross-country shoes, had sores rubbed up and down the sides of her feet.
“How many signatures did we get, Joan?”
Joan compiled our clipboard lists. “Thirty-three.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m afraid so. Obviously our citizens suffer from cultural deficiency.”
“Either that or we’re bad salespeople,” said Henry.
I yanked my shoes back on, gritting my teeth against the blister pain. “Well, we’ll just have to try harder.”
“How?” said Henry.
“We’ll go out every day, before and after school, and we’ll talk to people in the cafeteria at lunch, and in the halls between classes, and we’ll go to The Happy Place, too, and we won’t stop until we’ve gotten five thousand signatures, or ten thousand. Not until we’ve plastered every square inch of this city in fliers and pamphlets and posters and whatever it takes. Easy as that.”
“Oh, right.” Henry had slumped over, massaging his legs. “Easy.”
Joan was lying flat on a bench outside the Hall, humming what she called her zen exercises. “I admire your spirit, Olivia. Although my feet don’t.”
“Maybe this is unrealistic.” Henry put his head in his hands. “Are we crazy for trying this?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
And we were. But I liked it. It was hard work, and it kept me too busy to worry, and too excited to doubt.
Every day that next week, before, during, and after school, and every spare moment we could find, we kept working, tacking up fliers on every telephone pole, every bulletin board in every laundromat, recreation center, apartment building, and restaurant we could sneak our way into. We left huge stacks of fliers on shop counters and in the magazine sections at the libraries.
By the end of the first week of February, we had 241 signatures. It was Friday night—concert night.
This was the ultimate test.
How many people would show up? And how would they react to the ghosts?
“You remember your instructions, right?” I asked the ghosts. Our ghosts and about a dozen others we’d recruited huddled around me on the catwalk. Tillie kept nervously plucking ribs out of her chest and then shoving them back in topsy-turvy. Jax drifted back and forth across the catwa
lk, mumbling his part over and over to himself.
Mr. Worthington, naturally, stared at me. He would not let go of Joan’s arm.
“Of course,” said Tillie. “Once the concert starts, Jax and I will each take a side of the Hall. Me the west side, Jax the east side. Every now and then, we’ll show ourselves to someone and look pitiful.”
“And why will you look pitiful?”
“Because people are less likely to be frightened by ghosts and start some sort of stampeding panic if we look like innocent, tragic children,” recited Jax.
“Right. And you won’t ever stay visible for too long. Just long enough for people to think they saw something but not be totally sure.”
Tillie saluted me. Jax nodded solemnly.
“And Mr. Worthington?”
Mr. Worthington stuck his hand through Joan’s stomach and then pulled it out again.
“Merp,” Joan squeaked.
“Sorry, Joan. And yes, that’s right. You’ll try to touch as many people as possible.” I paused. That sounded so wrong. But if enough people felt the strange, cold sensation of Mr. Worthington nearby, then rumors would begin. People would talk. And talk meant publicity. “Well, you know what I mean. And what about you guys?”
The other ghosts, most of whom were part of Mrs. Barsky’s latest fan club said, their voices overlapping: “We do what the second-in-commands tell us to do.”
Jax’s chest puffed up like a balloon.
“Right,” I said. “And if you see signs of shades coming to crash the party?”
“We’ll fly right into the center of everyone and cause a mass panic,” Tillie said brightly.
A flash of red caught my eye, and I looked down through the catwalk railing to see Henry, waving his arms to get my attention. The musicians were walking onstage. Soon the concert would begin.
Ed and Larry dimmed the lights. I peered down into the half darkness until I found Henry leading people to their seats on the mezzanine. In one of the dress circle boxes, Mr. Rue was shaking hands with Mayor Pitter and his wife.
Joan crouched down next to me and pointed. “Olivia, look.”
The Year of Shadows Page 20
